Is Marathon Pace actually useful in training?

HRE wrote:

ATEA4RE wrote:

MP is basically "subthreshold" or "high-aerobic steady" or whatever else you want to call it. A reasonably hard effort for 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

So would 1 hour of subthreshold be more beneficial than 1 hour of easy (within a longer effort)? Are you really asking that? Lydiard used this pace in his plans extensively...nearly every elite seems to use it now.

Lydiard never used ANY pace in his plans extensively.

Lydiard athletes ran ‘3/4 effort’ high-aerobic steady regularly in base or buildup phases.

MP runs are great runs to help build your endurance so I would say they do help you physically. Also MP runs are for the mental aspect of knowing the pace and being comfortable on race day so you don't have to look at your watch every 45 secs to make sure your on pace.

I agree that many miles at MP pace is not a requirement to be physically ready though. You'll probably need to replace those miles with a mix of faster than MP and easy miles.

Its the same old recipe. Overall mileage and intensity of certain days will determine your MP capability.

Karma Worthy wrote:

MP runs are great runs to help build your endurance so I would say they do help you physically. Also MP runs are for the mental aspect of knowing the pace and being comfortable on race day so you don't have to look at your watch every 45 secs to make sure your on pace.

I agree that many miles at MP pace is not a requirement to be physically ready though. You'll probably need to replace those miles with a mix of faster than MP and easy miles.

Its the same old recipe. Overall mileage and intensity of certain days will determine your MP capability.

With capability being determined time at MP may help with execution of MP.

That's an effort, not a pace. And even he never really figured out exactly what that really meant.

I've never done a HM just two weeks out, but your paces are the close to mine. Personally, I would just do it by feel, aiming for one step below a race effort. If you aren't digging deep (and that's a feeling, not a specific pace), then you're usually not going to cook yourself. A slight negative split is probably fine, but I would absolutely avoid a hard kick. Again, this is personal, but nothing wipes me out more than a really hard kick (whether it's from a mile out or 400). Whatever pace you're holding in mile 10, just cruise it in at that pace. And be honest with yourself. If you feel like it's becoming a true struggle, back off.

Just my 2 cents. The art of training is mostly about figuring out where the edge is, and it's very individual.

I don't run faster than 2:20. I said 2:2X. Won't post results because I use this handle a lot, and I want to keep it anonymous, but there are a handful of registered posters who know who I am and could confirm.

I agree, it's not typical, and certainly not in the US, but it's not super unusual either. It's apparently more common in Kenya, which makes sense from an "eggs against the wall" perspective, as well as the fact that they run on dirt. I have actually noticed a significant anecdotal difference between doing it on pavement vs. hard packed gravel. And for what it's worth, 20 at MP is something I only do (or rather have done--as I said before, I don't do this anymore) two weeks out, in my racing shoes, with gels/water, on a fast course, and with my mileage dialed back to about 100 from a peak over 130. And usually it feels only moderately hard under those conditions. If it feels hard, I dial it back and don't sweat it. I don't believe that any single workout is make or break for a marathon.

As for whether it's worked for me, that's always a bit of guesswork. I'm at the stage in my running where I'm only interested in swinging for the fences, and I've PRed in about half of my marathons. In the marathons where I didn't run well, usually I made poor decisions in the race (didn't adjust pace for bad weather, or decided to try and hang with a group of pro women who were frankly a level above me).

I've also never arbitrarily picked an MP pace. It's always been my current PR, and if I better that in the race, it's been with a negative split.

You should determine your true race pace by feeling. Tables and calculators can give you a ball park estimate of what your race pace is but it’s best to know the feeling of race pace. As you get closer to your race, don’t look at your watch much during your long runs. After your long run look at your watch to confirm the pace you were running

800 dude wrote:

As for whether it's worked for me, that's always a bit of guesswork. I'm at the stage in my running where I'm only interested in swinging for the fences, and I've PRed in about half of my marathons. In the marathons where I didn't run well, usually I made poor decisions in the race (didn't adjust pace for bad weather, or decided to try and hang with a group of pro women who were frankly a level above me).

I've also never arbitrarily picked an MP pace. It's always been my current PR, and if I better that in the race, it's been with a negative split.

I'm genuinely curious at this approach you take. For the times you've actually nailed the workout, 20@MP, how many times have you hit that MP in race? And then the opposite: for all the times you've failed, how often have you nailed the pace in the race.

I worked with an Olympic marathoner and we used Daniels and Marathon Pace and Tempo/Long/Tempo as a core part of our program ahead of the Trails and Olympics. Maybe it didn't help, but it didn't seem to hurt¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also know that Hansons Distance Project also used MP successfully and a 26 kilometer MP run as a mini marathon simulation.

A marathon pace (MP) can be from almost lactate threshold pace for the best runners in the world, down to easy pace running for recreational runners. So this is the reason why we have so diverse answers here. Because MP means different effort for different people.

The more interesting question is the pace between the aerobic thresvold/VT1 and Lactate threshol/VT2, the so called moderate pace.

Yes, also important to train here.

about 3 weeks before marathon…

Warm up 4-6 miles easy

3x 5 miles at MP

Easy 2-3 minutes between

Build to this with some other MP stuff

Is it optimal if not training for a marathon? No.

But I believe it is the best specific prep for a successful marathon.

I think that the emphasis on very easy running that emerged over the last few years has undersold the value of moderate, steady running.

Anecdotally, I have always experienced much greater success on a diet of steady running (MP-MP+30) with fewer workouts than with the currently trendy "easy days easy, hard days hard" program.

* stipe wrote:

about 3 weeks before marathon…

Warm up 4-6 miles easy

3x 5 miles at MP

Easy 2-3 minutes between

Build to this with some other MP stuff

Is it optimal if not training for a marathon? No.

But I believe it is the best specific prep for a successful marathon.

For me, workouts like this that break it down into slightly shorter MP blocks are so much easier to mentally handle than straight MP runs where you're doing 12-18 straight at MP. Slogging through MP for over 10 miles alone is just mentally punishing.

A lot of interesting discussion here, but it would be most helpful to get input from people who either have a scientific background in aerobic performance or has coached a wide array of athletes.

The "MP is useless because it didn't work for me" or vice versa isn't really something worth structuring your entire training program around imo.

Any training program, for any sport, that says it’s useless or bad to practice what you’re going to do on race/game/match-day, is patently absurd.

I’ll concede you shouldn’t do all, or even most, of your marathon training at race pace. But to say you can’t, shouldn’t ever, or it’s useless to do any marathon pace work during marathon training, is a bad take.

Outlieing case study isolated example - Prof Andy Jones in a webinar relates how Kipchoge does a couple of 40k runs at 2.15 marathon pace, and then describes the heavy underfoot terrain and the continuous sharp hills, and that it's progression, so more demanding than doing the whole thing at same pace. It’s clearly not 2 hour marathon pace, but in relative effort it isn’t that far shy of it, and it’s 40k, notably further than 20 miles. And he cautiously (as he’s a scientist not a coach) suggests that for good club runners there may be a coaching point to consider there.

Sarah Hall has detailed her training and whilst it’s true she doesn’t do a standard 20 miles at MP she does a battery of very long runs where the pace variation and distance combo must be around 90% of the comparable training stress of 20miles at MP.

There are many many elite examples of comparable sorts of long hard efforts, playing around with a little slower slower than MP/MP/slightly faster than MP.

Outside the USA there’s a sub elite group who in their marathon build up do a series of canova-influenced runs switching between just quicker than/just slower than MP. The total distance builds from about 12 to max 15.5 miles; the longer efforts have the guys go through HM around 3.5 mins slower than their HM PR, having not run even pace to do so, and then carrying on likewise for another mile or two. They use a totally flat tarmac loop, traffic free. The guys PRs at the front end are in 2.12 to 2.19 range. And they stack up very well against their sometimes modest 5k/10k times. And they do these sessions after a full day’s work. If there’s something about these sessions, of which they do maybe 8 in a 12-13 week spell up to about 3 weeks pre marathon, that is too hard, too long, too something else, it’s not clear what. Amongst other things it helps them get a very tight idea of what their optimal MP should be.

GettingFasterDude wrote:

Any training program, for any sport, that says it’s useless or bad to practice what you’re going to do on race/game/match-day, is patently absurd.

I’ll concede you shouldn’t do all, or even most, of your marathon training at race pace. But to say you can’t, shouldn’t ever, or it’s useless to do any marathon pace work during marathon training, is a bad take.

True. A coach told me once "you'll never do something in a race you've never done in practice."

There are plenty of videos online of famous runners doing long tempos near MP. Lots of people pick a time the think they SHOULD be able to do and structure training around that time / pace. A much better approach is to run workouts at an effort level and let that effort dictate the pace.

LongHardDistance wrote:

True. A coach told me once "you'll never do something in a race you've never done in practice."

There are plenty of videos online of famous runners doing long tempos near MP. Lots of people pick a time the think they SHOULD be able to do and structure training around that time / pace. A much better approach is to run workouts at an effort level and let that effort dictate the pace.

Every race I do something I have never done in practice. And I bet that coaches athletes did also. Nobody runs race distance at race pace in practice.

As people have pointed out there is nothing magical about running slightly slower than LT pace. 40-80mins at MP is a solid workout. Is it better or worse that 30 mins at HM? Good luck figuring that out. But it is a fine line. A 20km run might be a good training effort. 30k might be excessive for most people.

Ultra Bear wrote:

@Jon Arne Glomsrud I like this, I've never thought of a 2 hour pace before. I've got a half marathon 2 weeks before a marathon and wanted to run quicker then MP (but slower then HM) I'm going to try at 2 hour pace (roughly 21 mile pace).

Another pace/training tool to add to artillery!

Exactly. The best runners in the world happens to have the 2h race pace as their MP pace. I think that is the confusion.

I would not go out and test the 2h race pace, but rather estimate it from 10k/1h race pace. Approx 4-5% slower than 1h race pace (true threshold pace). Let us say threshold is at 3.30 min/km, then 2h race pace is approx at <3.40, a 10 sec per km or 15sec per mile step slower is a rule of thumb. If you think about it. Adding 15 sec per mile will make the running more comfortable, but it is still quite fast work. I feel it eases down to something not that fast after yet another 30sec per mile slowing down (+45sec per mile from threshold pace)

HITHEREYOU wrote:

Nothing hobby joggery about running 48 miles a week even for a marathon that's plenty for most people, what is hobby joggery is how you run those miles, doing 20 of those miles, then 22 at goal MP is almost running your marathon every 2 weeks, that sounds way too hard to me and doesn't seem like ideal training. You could likely take 45mins of your goal time just by training a little smarter, less is more kinda thing.

I get the impression a lot of people run their long runs, or large portions of it, at MP not for any training benefit but from some fear they won't be able to run their goal time without it.

Thanks, thats a fair comment, you are bang on the money for me anyways , it is fear that i wont be able to run my goal time without it (MP long runs).

As you also say, I likly need to train smarter than necessarily harder to get gains from where I am now. Thats for after marathon one though in a few weeks, I just want to get to the finish line in one piece for now, lopping half an hour or more off of the finish time is further down the road.